


The Wild Hunt

by Actaeon, Scarimonious



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Disturbing Content, Gen, High amounts of Angst, Lots of references to Hannibal Rising, Mental (and physical) Health Issues, Nightmare Fuel, Somebody please help Will Graham, also sort of, sort of, tw: abuse, tw: child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:09:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1237729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actaeon/pseuds/Actaeon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarimonious/pseuds/Scarimonious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will's nightmares get more and more out of hand as a mysterious killer threatens the children of Baltimore. When evidence suggests that the actual culprit may be Hannibal himself, Will is the only one willing to believe in his innocence. But countless questions demand an answer: Who is 'Mischa', a name that seems to appear everywhere all of a sudden, and who wrote the letters of unknown origin found at the crime scenes?</p><p>When Will finally unravels the truth his own life is endangered by a shadow from Hannibal's past…</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wild Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is it. The day I waited for.  
> My first participation as an author for a Big Bang. WHELPS. 
> 
> The story contains themes of a dark nature and may not be suitable for the faint of hearts. Please check the warning and tread carefully.  
> Countless, endless, universially encompassing thanks to my beta and the beautiful Scarimonious, who provided each and every uniquely eerie image that has been used in this story.  
> Also even bigger soul-splitting thank you's to KFlynn, who inspired the use of a certain car in this story. Without them this work would not exist.

_The dogs are barking and the Owls cry out loud,_  
Shadows are laughing and screaming in my ears.  
I see the outline of the horned Man-in-Black.  
He stretch his hand to my left shoulder in fear.

I'm chasing my shadow inside my own soul  
I am the persecutor of myself in the wild hunt  
\- Therion, “The Wild Hunt” 

_______________________________________

Will Graham knew that he was dreaming. He knew it, and he could do nothing about it.

The bleak forest around him made no sound as he trotted along, following the lead of a creature that could not, would never be real. The faceless trees stared at him with accusation etched into their bark, and finger-like branches clawed at his clothes; still, he moved on, led by the shadow of his own guilt. He could feel the forest ground below his feet, marvelled at the slight sting of old roots or pines, hidden in a place that sunlight would never reach. He was unable to stop his descent into darkness. 

The raven-feathered stag turned his head and waited for him, always several steps ahead, always just out of reach. Will wanted to run his fingers across the soft fur, wanted to feel the reality of the creature, but he knew that he couldn’t. Because there was no reality, ultimately – just the fact that insanity was bubbling inside him like a venom, ready to overflow at any second, cloud his mind further and break everything down into the shards of a formerly healthy life.

This was all that would wait for him, one day. The darkness, the forest, and the stag. 

Suddenly, the creature perked up. Will saw the nervous movement of the ears and the way it corrected its stance, far more controlled now and always ready to make a break for the trees around them if needed. His heart was pounding faster as the dream made its transition around him, drifting from solitary loneliness into growing anxiety and fear. While the stag waited and listened, Will held his breath, and the forest was quiet around them. 

Until the shadows came alive.

The loud barking of dogs filled his ears, and Will whipped around, feeling far too much like a creature of the woods himself. He could smell them before he even got the first glimpse of their shaggy coats, the stench of blood heavy in the air. Movement caught his eyes, and he stumbled back as the first one of the pack emerged – a skinny canine, all teeth and claws, with fur in the colour of ice streaked with glistening viscera. He ran towards him, and Will turned on instinct, running for his life.

Trees passed him in a flurry of whipping branches and blurred lines against the odd, colourless background, and he saw the stag in the corner of his eye, despair written across the features that rang decidedly too human in his mind. And then Will stumbled, his feet caught on an uprooted tree and his hands scrabbling for purchase immediately. 

The world tilted. The hounds got closer. Will tried to stand, tried to move, tried to escape as the first, four-legged predator was almost upon him, and-- 

He woke up with a start, and a scream, and found himself in his very old bedroom, in Wolf Trap, Virginia. His body was drenched in cold sweat, his heart hammering in the hollow of his throat and something wet and heavy resting inside of his mouth, trying to suffocate him. It took him agonizing seconds to realize that it was his own tongue, numb and oddly paralyzed.

There were no dogs around, aside from his own strays, scattered all across the floors of the little house. One of them raised its head in the darkness, blinked, yawned, and went back to sleep. 

It had been another nightmare, another bad dream. Slowly, Will started to lose control about the difference between them. 

He rolled onto his back, lead-limbed and tired. Will blinked against the darkness, his heart still tumbling in his chest like a flock of caged birds. 

“I’m scared,” he mouthed against the ceiling, and the ceiling did not reply.

_______________________________________

The next morning in Quantico was not kind to him, and Will did not even manage to drown his sour mood in his third cup of coffee. His students had been a particular pain on this day, countlessly asking the most mundane question he didn’t even feel like answering with a glare. And now, after class, he would be stuck, grading papers for at least two hours more.

Or so he thought. 

When Jack all but barged into the room he called his office (it consisted mainly of his desk in the lecturing hall, his notebook and a stack of papers that looked more than a little ragged on their corners) he didn’t even flinch. These days Jack more often than not visited him during work hours, sometimes cutting class short, sometimes surprising him when he was about to drift off into the darkness of his mind. Today, Will felt moderately prepared. He nodded at the direction of the older man as a way of greeting, but refused to issue eye contact or even to acknowledge him with a glance.

“We need you,” Jack said, and Will swallowed the bitter anger still lingering in his throat after this particular bad night. Of course they needed him. They didn’t care what he needed. 

“Good morning to you, too,” he finally muttered, concentrated on scribbling his almost-illegible notes to the side of the document until Jack took it from his desk, his gesture a mix of despair and frustration. Will stared ahead, sighed, then sat up, focusing on a spot next to Jack’s ear. 

“What happened?” 

Jack’s face was cold, the face of a man who had seen far too much and who needed nothing more than a break. 

“Get in the car. I’ll tell you on the way.” 

There was no way to say no, not for Will or anyone else, not when Jack wore this face and used this perfectly controlled pitch of his voice. Naturally, Will had followed his lead – and he forced himself to suppress any associations to dogs and packs, still shaken from the last night – out into the parking lot, and soon found himself in the back seat of an FBI car. He clutched his shoulder bag maybe a bit too tightly, his eyes focused on the window to his right and his ears tuned in to the frequency of Jack’s voice. Will wished he could drown out any other sound or stimulus for the moment; It would have been nice to hear nothing else than the low tone, reading from the case file, feeding his tired and sluggish brain with information to dissect while he waited for the car to take him wherever he was needed, like an animal on the way to –  
No. 

There was a crime scene to visit; the victim had been found in Baltimore, just west of Erdman Avenue, in the Orangeville industrial area. Will knew the street from earlier cases, and remembered it as nothing fancy, really – it was a poor part of town, with run-down factories and countless vacant buildings, falling to ruin under the twisted gaze of time. Still, the victim in general surprised him enough to allow a cold shiver to run across his back. 

“A girl?” he echoed hoarsely, his voice rising a bit too high for his own liking. He pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose, as the headache blooming inside of his brain already grew like an infection. 

“A kid, really. We don’t have her name yet, and there’s no missing child fitting the description of what we know so far, but yeah, we’re talking about a female between six and maybe nine years.” 

“Just what I needed,” Will muttered into the stifling air in the back of the car and leaned back, pressing his back into the leather of the seat, trying to focus on anything but the slow whisper of the nightmare in the back of his skull. This wouldn’t be one of the more acceptable cases. This would drag him right into deep shit again, he just knew it.

_______________________________________

The abandoned work site near East Federal Street was already surrounded by policemen, the sirens on top of their vehicles flashing and illuminating the neighbourhood in cold, blue lights. Will exited the car and followed Jack inside, steeled for whatever he was about to see. He saw Price and Zeller on his way in, working quietly on a door, no doubt taking samples and looking for fingerprints – or anything, really, that could give the killer away. Will could already tell them that it would be very difficult, this time.

There was a hand-painted sign atop the factory doors, but it had paled by age and rain, illegible now to all those who passed the gates into the old building. The permanent smell of bleach or strong glue hung in the air, just barely overlaid by the putrid , coppery smell of something else; Will stopped at the threshold, taking a deep breath and stepping into the twilight with what felt like no way back. 

Parts of the roof above were missing; debris was scattered all across the floor, wooden bars and roof tiles and indefinable dirt his eyes passed across in a gesture of dismissal. The floor was wet with what looked like a mixture of rain water and blood. Will treated carefully, cautious not to leave footprints in the mess. He almost felt like a ghost, passing through the area of carnage with nothing corporeal to disturb the scene. If only that would be the case. 

He saw Beverly on her knees, holding a camera and taking pictures of what he assumed were the remains of the victim. Will’s stomach lurched as he stepped closer to the object on the floor, engulfed by the smell of wet rags and viscera, surrounded by a small lake of dark red that shone almost black in the low light. 

The object was a bucket, or a tub, made out of metal and maybe one meter in diameter. It was arguably old and made by the rough strokes of a hammer, with bumps and dents everywhere. He could see some flakes of rust, clinging to the outer rim, and white-speckled limescale on the inside of the bucket, the latter being so clear and white – a picture of innocence – that it felt utterly wrong in this place. The tub was filled with dirty water and the body of a child. 

Will considered her to be no older than six, maybe even younger. She had probably been a sweet child: blonde hair, reaching down to her shoulder, a pink, frilly dress, pale skin with just the slightest hint of freckles from what he could see. Just a short while ago, Will could imagine her skipping through a park close to home, with a family dog at her side and a cone of ice cream in her free hand, the iconic picture of childhood ignorance and joy, running to meet up with her friends. 

Now, she would never run again. 

“The victim shows visible bruises and burn marks on her arms and stomach, probably from where she had been held violently,” Beverly muttered into her handheld recorder. She did not even acknowledge Will, completely engrossed in her work. “So far there are no suggestions of sexual abuse.” 

“How comforting,” he said to himself and knelt down next to the child. The skin of her face was almost translucent, her eyes closed; There was a gash on the back of her head, painting her hair and dress red at the back of her body. She probably died of that head wound, he thought. Hopefully it had been a quick demise. 

Children were always the worst. 

“Do we,” Will started and had to clear his throat immediately. It felt as if something heavy was lodged in there, making it impossible to speak at first. “Do we know anything yet? She probably had no personal items on herself, right?” 

“Nothing,” Beverly agreed, putting her camera and recorder down and turning fully towards Will. Her eyes raked across his body and spoke clearly to him: ‘Rough night,’ they said, or probably more accurate, in her words: ‘you look as if you spent the last night running from your own brain, I suggest some sleep.’ Will bit his lower lip to keep himself from replying to something that had never been said, as this was widely regarded as weird. 

“Apparently she was found about two hours ago by a bunch of teens that are currently in interrogation,” she continued, ignoring Will’s internal struggle with practiced ease. “She’s showing the usual skin macerations, but also clear signs of burns on any part that was submerged in water. We can assume that it was heated.” 

Will made a wordless sound of affirmation as he stared at the little, lifeless body; the girl’s eyes were closed, and her head hung forward, as if she was sad and wanted to hide her vision beside the curtain of matted her. He tried to find a connection, anything, but it was so hard. There was just the one, stinging thought, the one that told him that this little, bright child in her princess-like gown would never again stand up, never again run through fields. 

He swallowed heavily. Nodded. 

Beverly, and most likely Jack (somewhere behind him; somewhere where he couldn’t see him), waited. 

“Can I have a moment?” Will weakly asked nobody in particular, and they left without a word. By now, they were used to it – Will doing ‘his thing’ in silence, as far away from any physical trigger as possible. To him, it was all about immersion, like diving into ice-cold water. He left his safe footing behind and fell into the embrace of the unknown, giving up a part of himself in the process. But if it could prevent further deaths, if it kept other girls like this one safe, then it was more than worth it. 

Finally alone, Will closed his eyes and willed reality away from himself. 

He dove into the mind-set of the faceless killer, became a person who would be cruel enough to abduct a little girl. He could see her, in the park. He could see himself, lulling her into his arms with promises and playful gentleness. She was naïve, and he was cunning. 

He took her to this special playground. But why? Just why? 

He tried to find anything, a link to the invisible person they were seeking. Just a little something that made it easier to grasp a killer’s idea. The girl had probably been dead before she was put into the tub. The tub was not used to kill her. The tub was just an underscore to his idea. 

A white girl in a predominately black neighbourhood. Hate crime? That was a potential, but Will didn’t feel hate. He didn’t feel anything concerning the girl. 

In his mind’s eye, the water boiled, and the child sat in the middle of the tub, her eyes having lost life long ago, her hair mussed, her dress floating up, controlled by the water’s rapid movements. The factory was filled with the smell of blood and boiling meat, and a single, violent thought leashed through Will’s brain. 

Hunger. 

The child opened her eyes and screamed, pointing at him; Will screamed, too.

_______________________________________

He opened his eyes as he was shaken by heavy, strong hands; someone called his name with fervour. Will tried to take a deep breath, but found that he couldn’t. His lungs were burning from the lack of oxygen, and his heart was racing inside of his chest. His mind took him back to the morning, and everything mingled behind his eyes – the dogs and the girl, together in the forest. The hungry pack, attacking her. Tearing flesh off her bones which stood out white and bleak against the lush green of the forest. Ripping her to pieces as—

“Will!” 

Somebody was calling his name. Somebody demanded him to wake up, to clear his head. It was all a nightmare, a hallucination, not real, not dangerous – but why couldn’t he breathe? 

Someone pressed a paper bag against his lips, and Will caught the faintest smell of sugar-glazed donut in the process. He wanted to throw up; More so, he wanted to cry. Another person pressed his shoulders and said something that sounded like some kind of order. 

Although he didn’t understand the words, he breathed. Again and again. Slowly, his lungs stopped hurting. 

“He’s never been hyperventilating before,” said a female voice. Probably Beverly, then. As Will’s head cleared he realized that she was holding him, her free hand around the paper bag that she was still pressing ¬into his face without mercy. Will was forced to breathe in his own carbon dioxide, fighting hard to bring his body back to a fully operational level. His headache returned with full force as his mental stability started to return. The girl was still dead. There were neither forest nor ravishing hounds. And he probably just had a giant breakdown in front of his colleagues. 

Will bit his tongue as the hazy film of tears started to cloud his vision. This day got better and better, really. 

There was an awkward silence around him as he tried to gain his composure back. It was hard – incredibly hard – especially since he trembled like a child. He was shivering and his skin felt clammy, even to himself. Right now, Will wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole, disappearing forever. 

“Sorry,” he choked out as words began to return to his brain. Jack just turned away, not gracing him with a reply.

_______________________________________

“I’m telling you, I’m alright. This isn’t needed.”

They were on their way back from the crime scene, Will in the passenger seat of Jack’s car. He was wearing a blanket from the first aid kit, huddled together like a little boy after the rain. His teeth had stopped clattering, and his body was finally saturated with oxygen again, but he felt horribly tired and feverish. The panic attack had caught him by surprise, and Will hadn’t even noticed when he had started hyperventilating. Now, he felt drained, like he had always felt after a particularly bad attack back in High School. 

God, what was happening to him. 

“Jack. I just need some sleep—“ 

“You just lost your shit on a crime scene.” Jack’s voice was low and heavy on emphasis, and he looked Will dead in the eye for a split second – long enough for the man to freeze in his every movement. “You screamed, you fell into a full-blown panic attack, and you nearly passed out. I think this warrants an unscheduled visit to your therapist.” 

“Doctor Lecter’s going to be busy,” Will tried, not yet ready to admit defeat. “He has a lot of clients.” 

“He told me before he’d always make time for you. Let him live up to his promises.” 

“Jack, it was nothing!” 

Will’s voice rose an octave, fear and frustration mingling into a cruel mix of emotions he could barely contain. When Will closed his eyes he saw the back of the girl’s head. The blood. And then, she always, always turned around to stare him into the soul. 

“Panic attacks are not nothing!” Crawford bellowed back, and Will sunk into himself, falling quiet for the rest of the ride. 

Maybe Hannibal would just be busy and turn them away. Probably. 

Of course, it didn’t happen like this. 

Hannibal was in his office when Will arrived, Jack still just one step behind him. They waited until the door to the waiting room opened and the charming psychiatrist saw one of his more frequent clients out, an elderly woman in well-situated clothes and with an expensive handbag. She looked at Will; Will refused to look back. 

If Hannibal was surprised, he didn’t show. 

“I see you again next week, Mrs. Michels,” he said in his fine, accentuated English, a voice that touched Will’s heart in a surprising manner, washing calm about his troubled mind. It felt like conditioning. It probably was just the same. 

The woman smiled and patted his hands. “Certainly, doctor. I’ll see you very soon. Please take care.” 

She left them, and quiet overtook the waiting room; Hannibal slowly turned his attention to Will and, in extension, Jack, his face mellow as he regarded the young profiler.

“I will admit that I am surprised to see you here, Will. You did not make an appointment for today,” Hannibal started, picking his words very carefully. He sounded surprisingly good-natured and soft. “But you look as if you would not need one, just…. a bit of company. Please, come in.” 

He stepped aside, away from the door; holding his hand out and offering the way into his parlour to the unsuspecting fly.

The dark thought were starting to get ridiculous. Will smiled a sardonic half-smile and shrugged. 

“Well, Jack here thinks I lost my marbles…” 

“What I think,” Jack interjected, his strong voice demanding respect in any surrounding, “is that Will had a particular hard day at work. Hard as in traumatizing, and I would not like him to break down under the weight of what he has seen.” 

Hannibal nodded with almost gravely acceptance, and Will felt his far too intelligent eyes on him, seizing him up like a bird of prey. They felt hot on his skin, almost scalding. He suddenly missed the blanket he had left in Jack’s car; it had at least allowed him to hide for a bit.

“I understand.,” Hannibal said smoothly. ”Very well. I’m not awaiting another patient, so my office would be all ours for the evening.” 

Will was absolutely certain that he was ignoring Jack for his benefit alone, and it made him feel slightly better. Lecter stood back, leaving room for a decision that was Will’s alone. It was down to fight or flight, and Will was out of energy to do any of these. 

So he hung his shoulders in an expression of surrender and stepped into the room, exhaustion written all across his face. He slung his bag on the settee and continued toward the chairs, dutifully noticing that Hannibal was exchanging some words with Jack in front of the door, calm, but resolutely. 

Only minutes later, the door closed, and Lecter stepped up to him, with slow and measured movements. He continued to produce a dark cup from one of his cupboards – a smooth, black tumbler without a handle that seemed to swallow the light around itself, like the corporeal image of negative space – and placed it on top of the small glass table next to Will’s seat without questions.

“Jack went home,” he said by simple means of explanation, busying himself with something on his desk that Will couldn’t see. “He agreed that I should take you back to your home later, when the time rolls around, and that it would be better to keep this discussion between ourselves. I would be delighted to enjoy your company for the evening, Will. Could I interest you in a cup of Gyokuro?”

The profiler frowned, looking at the tea pot resting on a small stove on top of Hannibal’s desk. Oh. Tea. Tea actually didn’t sound too bad. 

“I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but yes, please,” he finally muttered, finding his voice where he left it. “I could use something to pick me up right now.” 

Hannibal wore an expression between fondness and amusement. He held the pot with careful hands, admiring the faint stream of hot air rising from the spout as he spoke. “I’m afraid this will not be like the typical black tea you enjoy at home. Gyokuro is a special kind of Japanese green tea, or Sencha, created from leaves that were sheltered from direct sunlight for at least two weeks before the harvest. Its name translates into ‘jade dew’, in no doubt a reference to its extraordinary, brilliant colour.” 

He did not expect Will to answer to his informative monologue, and instead poured some of the warm, honey-coloured liquid into his cup. The profiler took it and smiled weakly, sipping on the surprisingly cool tea.

“It’s nice,” he said after a short moment, and Hannibal very nearly beamed at him. Filling his own cup he sat down opposite of Will, enjoying the subtle flavour of the expensive, Japanese tea with all senses. 

Will could enjoy this. A quiet moment after the horrid turn of events, a moment of calm, even from his own thoughts. Somewhere in the distance there was the sound of traffic, drifting in through the open windows. Horns blaring. Someone shouting. The cheerless melody of an ice cream truck. 

Life went one, and somewhere in the city was a dead child that would never return home. 

Nobody cared. 

“You were having a hard day?” Hannibal prompted after a comfortable stretch of silence, and Will sighed into the tea. Of course he wasn’t entitled to some peace and quiet now, all by himself. He was still with his therapist, after all. 

“They found a little girl today,” he explained, his own voice as low and cheerless as he felt. “Dead, in a factory. No clues yet, nothing at all. Somehow, these days are always the hardest.” 

“Children are the future. Seeing their life lost before our eyes is the biggest perversion of nature,” Hannibal agreed, and Will was too tired to comment on his choice of words. He continued, “While your field of work is troublesome every day it’s never as dark and desolate as on the days when you are faced with the most vile of mankind’s antics. I’m sorry Will, I really am.” 

It felt soothing, in a way, allowing the soft tone of Hannibal’s voice to wash over him, caressing his body like warm water. Will closed his eyes. He felt unable to answer right away as memories and emotions struck him, the visual of a small body immersed in water still very much present, the mental awareness of the scent of pine trees all around him still stuck in his brain. He shivered. 

This wouldn’t be easy. 

“It’s not just that,” Will tried, forcing himself to speak against his better judgement. “It’s not just what I feel, it’s also what I don’t feel. It’s difficult.” 

“The killer,” Hannibal suggested, and Will’s eyes snapped open. He knew that this little, physical reaction would give him away, and yet he said nothing. 

“You’re trying to grasp the person responsible for the child’s demise, and you find yourself unable to do so. You can’t connect to the beast, and it haunts you.” 

“There are other beasts that haunt me!” he spat out bitterly, regretting it immediately as Hannibal’s eyebrows rose just a fraction. 

“What beasts?” 

“Nightmares,” Will said, taking another hearty sip of the tea to find focus in reality. Flavour exploded across his taste buds, and he willed it to be his anchor. “Yesterday, I was torn to shreds by a pack of wild dogs. I can still hear them howling. I was running with – a stag, and they were following us. It’s just a nightmare, actually I think it’s stupid, I – “ 

“A dream is never stupid, Will,” Hannibal said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward in a perfect expression of friendly secrecy. “It will always tell you about yourself, and what your mind is occupied with. Your dreams and nightmares reflect the emotional turmoil you are going through on a day to day base. Were you able to see those dogs hunting you?” 

“They were sort of… ghostly,” he muttered, more to himself than to Hannibal. “Ragged and skinny. They looked feral, and maybe not even like dogs, more… Monsters.” 

“Like the pack dogs of the Wild Hunt, then.” 

“Excuse me?” 

Now it was Will’s turn to raise his eyebrows in confusion. Hannibal sometimes did that to him – he was speaking, and pouring his heart out against his wishes, and Doctor Lecter would confuse him with something else, something that didn’t fit into the picture, a grotesquely educated non sequitur. “What’s the Wild Hunt?” 

“It’s a legend, maybe a fable and certainly a folk myth of the olden days of Europe. I encountered it first in my early years, told by my very old, German teacher. It’s the tale of a ghostly group of riders engrossed in their hunt, riding across the sky or along the ground. They are said to be accompanied by their dogs, which is what made me think of them. Some say that the huntsmen are ghosts, others connect them to the fairies; it all depends on which cultural area you are looking into, really. Sometimes they are even connected to Gods, such as Wodan, a Germanic deity of wind and death. Witnessing the Wild Hunt was said to be deadly to most, as the group would take any lost souls with them into their realm. They are also known as a premonition of catastrophes. Back then, those who saw the Wild Hunt – and lived to tell the tale – remained in fear of their future.” 

He hesitated, his downcast eyes seeking for answers inside of his tea cup. Will, suddenly, felt cold. 

“I do not want to connect your night terrors to anything supernatural, Will. I am simply considering the fact that your brain might try to use this image to make you think of something in particular. Something connected to the legend that might be stuck somewhere in the back of your mind. Why the hunt? Why dogs, your trusted dogs turning against you in this moment of helpless reverie? And why do you consider yourself prey to the wolves that stalk through your nights?” 

They fell silent, for the moment. Will felt drained after the stories, more so than he imagined to be possible. He finished his tea and raised his head, looking at the clock on Hannibal’s desk. 

“It’s late,” he echoed, exhausted to the core. 

“I can take you home if you like,” Hannibal offered, picking up on his signals of distress. Will did not look at him; he wasn’t ready to face his most likely apparent disappointment. 

”That’d be nice. Sorry, I’m. I’m beat.” 

“Do not worry, Will. I understand.” 

Together, they made their way towards the waiting room and the exit that lay beneath. Hannibal was just one step behind him, and Will could feel his slow and calm breath in his neck. Like a predator, his brain supplied. Like danger. 

He forced himself not to whip around in fear, and instead passed the row of chairs. In that moment his eyes fell on an unusual object to his left. 

“What’s that?”

He frowned and moved towards the chairs. There was something stuck between the cushion and the wooden frame of one of them – a slim envelope with a pink, frilled border. Nothing he would expect in Hannibal’s waiting room, really. 

Especially not due to the fact that it certainly hadn’t been there earlier. 

Will turned the envelope in his hands. There was something written on the back of it, with blue ink and a perfectly girlish handwriting; “Mischa,” the paper said. Just that. Just one name. 

“Do you have a patient named Mischa, Doctor Lecter?” 

He turned towards Hannibal, who was not standing right behind him. The man appeared frozen for no apparent reason at all – his eyes slightly wider than before, his mouth open in what looked like a well-suppressed shock. How odd. 

“This must belong to one of my earlier clients,” Hannibal said after a further second of stunned silence. He took the paper, and Will could see that his fingers trembled ever-so-slightly. “Or their daughter. I will return it to them on the next occasion.” 

Will didn’t believe a word of what he said, but nodded quietly. He marked this exchange in his mind, a bright beacon in the otherwise dim library of his recent memories, ready to be turned over again.

_______________________________________

 

_______________________________________

That night, Will heard the hounds again, but they did not come closer. He was standing in a clearing, in the middle of the same forest he had visited the night before. He was alone, and he was naked; that was new.  
He could feel the stag, somewhere not too far away, but he couldn’t see him, not even in the corner of his eye. Even the air around him felt hazy, like some kind of thick fog, embracing everything in damp despair.

And there was a metal bathtub, standing in the middle of the clearing. The water inside was boiling, and although Will could not see what was sitting inside of it, he felt a growing fear well up inside himself. 

He could step closer. He could take a look. He was strong enough for this, strong enough to see whatever his sick and feverish brain would hold in store for him tonight. He could do it.

Something knocked against the inner wall of the tub, startling him. 

Will woke, drenched in sweat and crying in his sleep.

_______________________________________

The next days passed uneventful at Quantico Academy. When Jack stepped into his office three days after they had found the first victim, Will’s stomach lurched in expectation.

Another child, another area of Baltimore. Again, the same profile: The victim was female, around the same youthful age as the last one, wearing a colourful dress and found in an abandoned factory. This time, however, there was no bathtub involved. 

“A plate,” Will said, not believing a word of what he was hearing. He didn’t feel too good anymore. 

Jack nodded gravely. “The girl has been dissected and sits on a plate like some kind of Sunday roast. According to Katz it’s even fully decorated.” 

Will was quite sure that he would try vegetarian dishes for a couple of days. His imagination filled in the blanks that were purposefully left open by Jack, and he really didn’t like it. 

“Are we going right away?” 

“Preferably. We tried to contact Doctor Lecter to accompany you, but it was impossible to get hold of him. He’s probably busy.” 

Will shrugged, but pondered the fact for a moment longer, even as he followed Jack to the car. It was quarter to one, and Will was by now acquainted with the schedule of his therapist: Hannibal never had any clients at this time, as it was during his personal break. He would most likely sit at his desk, drink some ‘lazy coffee’ (a Lithuanian specialty; Will considered it quite disgusting, but to each their own, right?) and note down his recent breakthroughs concerning the last patients. Even if Hannibal, for some weird reason, still entertained a client he would call back, and so far had never failed to do so. 

It was probably nothing, but it might also be something. Will wasn’t so sure anymore. 

Once they had reached the factory (so startlingly similar to the last scene of crime, a huge, black-walled building that was nothing like a hollow skeleton of the past) Will tried to find a connection to the killer. He knew, he just knew that it was the same one; it felt like the same handwriting. The girl was not much more than a messy heap of blown-out existence by now, but she was placed… beautifully… on a silver plate, adorned with delicate, carved bones and fresh lettuce leaves. It reminded him of Hannibal’s luscious dinner plates. He felt sick even thinking of that. 

Wordlessly, he tried to create an image of the monster responsible for this atrocity. He considered all the possibilities as the forensic specialists moved around him: A person with access to children. Teacher. Kindergartener. Librarian? No, the kids were too young. Maybe baby sitters. None of the two children have been reported as missing so far, so they either came from neglectful families or were simply not expected to be home yet. Maybe some kind of day care, or a foster home? 

He frowned. 

“The culprit harbours some kind of feeling concerning girls,” he said out loud, not caring who would be his witness. “Intense hatred… or maybe a twisted kind of love. But all of it is directed solely towards girls so far.” 

He tried to find a connection between the bathtub and the plate, but failed. His stomach started to rebel, and Will stepped back for a moment, heading out of the building to catch his breath. 

On a whim, he called Hannibal again. Still no reply; It was quarter past two on his mobile. 

Everything about this felt odd.

_______________________________________

On the next days, Will decided to visit Hannibal. It was not a well-formed decision; Ultimately, it was no decision at all, just a whim he decided to follow, trying hard to convince himself that he was just curious, nothing more. He pulled up in front of the office and went into the waiting room.

No other client was around. Will knocked. 

He was almost surprised to see Hannibal in front of himself, sharply dressed in a three-piece suit with matching tie. He showed equal surprise at Will’s sudden visit, but also delight, asking him to come in with a smile. 

“I’m terribly sorry about yesterday,” he almost immediately started. “I managed to misplace my mobile phone right before I went out for lunch in one of my favourite restaurants here in Baltimore. I know that I should have called back immediately after I rediscovered it, but the day was incredibly crowded…” 

“It’s fine, really. I just wanted to ask you something – minor. It wasn’t important.” 

He didn’t tell him about the other girl they found; somehow, it felt safer to keep things from him, at least for now. Who knew if Hannibal might not be connected to the reason behind them. And since when did he eat out, anyway?

Still, they talked, and Will gradually calmed down, even going as far as to describe his recent nightmares. Lecter seemed surprised to hear that the hounds played a lesser role in them than before, speaking of coping mechanisms and the ability to overcome traumas. Maybe he was right; maybe Will harboured the nightmare of formally trusted canines attacking him as a sign of his clear self-depreciation. He tried not to think too much into it, though. The days were cruel enough right now – messing with his reoccurring nightmares didn’t see like the best decision. He closed his eyes to catch a deep breath, turning his mind into the sounds of the city, awake and alive in front of the windows. The hum of traffic, the sounds of school buses and ice wagons, the laughter, yells and chit-chat of humans … it all felt so far away, like a life he didn’t even belong to anymore.

When Hannibal asked him to leave – as he would have an appointment with a patient in less than fifteen minutes – Will’s concerns were almost completely wiped away. There was no way Hannibal would be involved in this. No way at all. 

But on his way to the door, passing the wooden desk, he spotted a second, white-pink envelope on top of the first one, and his heart tightened in worry. This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t as it was supposed to be. 

He opened his mouth to ask, but Hannibal shushed him with what looked almost like a pleading glance, more or less pushing him out of the door. 

“Please, Will. We shall talk tonight.” 

Will promised himself not to let this opportunity slip.

_______________________________________

The night didn’t come around, though.

There was another call, and he was forced to drive right into downtown Baltimore, to meet up with Jack on yet another crime scene. This time, Will almost didn’t need to see the image that would wait for him inside of the abandoned and hollow building; still, he went in, steeling himself as he would right in front of an impact. 

“Another day, another girl dead,” Zeller said from somewhere as he entered. The victim was, again, placed in a small tub, only this time dissected and spread open, like a frog in anatomy class. Her little organs glittered like wet jewels.  
She fit the profile like a glove. 

“They look worse every day.” Beverly, taking pictures in her usual, almost detached manner. Click, click, click. Will counted the seconds.  
“But whoever’s doing this? He gets messy. This time, they even forgot something…” 

And that was it. That was the straw that seemed to break the camel’s back. Will stared at the white-and-pink envelope in her hand, and his heart stopped for a second before beating harder and faster. He was absolutely sure that the writing on the side spelled ‘Mischa’. 

He could hear the dogs howling in his mind, and spoke before he could stop himself.

“That’s the same envelope I’ve seen in doctor Lecter’s office.” 

“What?” 

Jack’s voice boomed through the building, loud enough to make Jimmy Pryce jump in sudden agitation. The leader of the team stalked up to Will, who felt small and vulnerable for a second, and look at him with a stern expression. 

“You know of something like that? What? Where?” 

“I didn’t think anything of it! Doctor Lecter had one of those. He said they belonged to a patient, I – seriously Jack? You think he’s connected to this?” 

But It wasn’t impossible, Will knew it. He tried not to allow himself any thoughts into that direction, but a quiet, little voice inside of his mind tried to poison his resolve. Hannibal, a killer? Even if evidence spoke against him, Will was unwilling to believe it. 

“Whatever it is, that’s a piece of evidence you withheld from us. What did you think about it, Will? A patient’s letter? This looks like it belongs to a girl. A young girl. Like the dead young girls!” 

Jack’s voice rose, and the forensic team looked at each other. They seemed to ponder the easiest way of retreat, Will waged silently. Too bad that there would be none for him. 

He expected as much; there was suddenly a bitter feeling on the tip of his tongue. Betrayal tasted funny.

_______________________________________

“I will say it again, Agent Crawford,” Hannibal said stiffly, sitting perched up atop his office chair, “I cannot tell you anything about the origin of the letter. I found them in my waiting room and have never seen the handwriting. I thought they were possessions of a client that left without noticing their loss, and I did not open them.”

Jack’s team was currently raiding the office, and Will stood uncomfortable aside, watching them work. They were brutally precise, opening every drawer and cupboard, nosing through his files. It hadn’t taken the agents more than ten minutes to find the two closed envelopes, and nobody was particularly surprised then the signatures on the outer side matched on all three of them. All were adorned with the name ‘Mischa’. 

“This is a gift for you,” Jack read, holding the paper in both hands. It smelled slightly of perfume, and the handwriting was horribly messy. It looked like the hand of an impatient child. In Will’s head, nothing made sense anymore. 

“What kind of gift, doctor Lecter? What do you know?”

“I’m saying it again, I do not know anything. If you insist, please search both the office and my home, but I will assure you that I have nothing to hide.” Hannibal’s voice dropped, his tone turning acidic. He wasn’t amused, and Will could see why. Even if he was, in fact, innocent, this whole ordeal could prove a grave danger for his reputation.

“We’re considering it,” Jack growled, the letter still in hand. His eyes rested on Hannibal, and the man stared back, unmoving under the gaze of scrutiny. He wasn’t afraid. 

“Please do,” the therapist said, fighting hard to keep his tone levelled. When Jack informed him that he would spend the night under police supervision Hannibal moved to stand, shaking his head in disbelief, but staying quiet. 

“A word, Jack,” Will muttered, passing the desk and almost dragging Jack with him towards the door. 

“If this is some kind of false alarm you’re ruining his job,” he hissed. Jack replied with a spiteful expression. 

“And if it’s not I’m saving a life. Or more. I’m not saying it again: Choose whom you pledge your allegiance to, Will.” 

His eyes were cold, like flat blocks of ice, and even if he tried – they told Will nothing. So he evaded them like he did best, stepped back from his boss and moved back towards Hannibal, who was slightly trembling with suppressed emotion. 

Without thinking, Will placed his hand on his shoulder, and Hannibal seemed to freeze. He did not look up, but his fingers found Will’s, and he squeezed back. 

He wouldn’t leave him, not like this.

_______________________________________

It is a fight (another one in the row of fights and bites and mental, emotional bloodshed), but in the end Will is allowed to stay with Hannibal in one room of the therapist’s own house, cooped up by police officers and surrounded by what should feel like safety, but tasted like prison. Jack had wanted to put Hannibal in prison for the night, but Will’s insistent nagging had won, for once; and since his bedroom had already been raided by the police and was deemed clean as a whistle he was locked up in there instead, together with his twitchy patient, who acted as the own friend Hannibal seemed to have.

Will wrapped himself into a blanket on the floor that night, looking up to Hannibal who sat at the edge of the bed. He looked tired, almost haggard – worried, certainly, and Will couldn’t say that he didn’t understand. Much was at stake, especially for him. 

“They - We’ll find the true culprit,” he promised softly. Finishing rather lamely, he added “We’re doing all we can. Jack is just… Jack.” 

“I know,” Hannibal replied, his own voice roughened by exhaustion and the strain of feelings he refused to show, “And I understand Agent Crawford’s train of thoughts. He needs to minimize the dangers of another victim. He’s just doing what he deems right.” 

It sounded hurt, Will realized. Unable to find an answer to the raw pain he could taste in the words he switched off the light, nuzzling wordlessly into the carpet below him. 

“I do not have anything to do with the murder, Will,” Hannibal’s voice carried through the dark. “I need you to trust me. I hope you can.” 

Surprisingly, Will felt as if he could.

_______________________________________

He wasn’t alone in the forest anymore – hundreds of eyes are on him, watching his every move. Will refused to breathe and dreamed of a girl named Mischa, with blond hair and a pink dress and long lost, dead eyes that follow his every step.

_______________________________________

When Will reached Quantico on the following day – still in the clothes he had worn on the day before and with dark bags under his eyes – it’s not Jack who waited for him in his office, it’s Alana.

She sat on his desk, her slim fingers wrapped around a piece of crumbled cotton. Her eyes were slightly red and her make up not as perfect as it used to be; she had been crying, in the fashion Will expected her to cry in public, quiet and without as much as a faint tremor running through her shoulders. 

Although it felt stupid, Will rapped his knuckles against the doorframe, making himself known to her as he approached. She looked up, neither startled nor shocked, but instead expecting, and nodded her greeting. 

Will moved into the room, his footfalls quiet and his eyes everywhere but on her face. He waited, not sure for what he was even waiting. Alana fought for composure for ten, maybe twenty seconds more, before she straightened and began to speak. 

“There has been no new victim,” she said, and her tone and her voice held everything for Will. She didn’t say it to be informative. She said it because it would tell him all he needed. 

Jack was convinced now, and Hannibal probably on his way to prison. Will sucked in a harsh breath, forcing oxygen into his lungs, nodding although he didn’t know why. 

Alana looked at if she was a second from spelling everything out to him, but reigned herself in. 

“They’re going to interrogate him today. Jack wanted me to create a profile for him, but…” 

The sentence died on her lips, and her eyes narrowed. There was ferocity and anger, but it bubbled below the composed, elegant surface. Will saw so much of Hannibal in the way Alana held herself – back straight, eyes set on nothing in particular, mind hard at work- and he wondered, not for the first time, what she had learned from that old mentor and friend aside from tricks of their trade. 

He swallowed something hard and tasteless, lodged in the back of his mouth, and nodded again. Alana said all she needed to. 

“Take your time,” he finally brought out, voice wavering and thick with nervous energy he couldn’t explain. “If you need me, I’m down in the lab.”

“Will,” she said, but he was turning away already. “Will, what are you trying to do?” 

“I’m doing what I’m paid to do!” he called back, feeling anger and resentment he wasn’t ready to display. Not to Alana. She deserved better. 

“Finding the truth, however deep it’s hidden.”

_______________________________________

The forensic offices are always cold; this is something Will liked about them. They did not create the same, oppressive feeling he had had in the factories, did not smell of acid and blood and bile. They were clean-cut and white and filled with steel and plastic and loads of plastic bags.

It was comforting, to him. The dead lay at rest here, kept cool and kept dry, not yet six feet underground, but still dead as dead can be. 

He would be able to keep this room out of his nightmares. A monochromatic office had no place in a bleak forest. 

Breathing in through the mouth and feeling the cold metal of the countless slabs below his fingers Will entered the room in question. It had nothing but a number on the glass door – no tag line, no name, nothing, a number that described gruesomely murdered children and a number of pink letters that still smelled of cheap children’s perfume. The whole existence of the case was spread out onto four desks, three housing young bodies, long gone cold and white, bared for the tests run by the forensic team, one holding the letters and samples taken from the crime scenes. 

That was it, Will thought wearily as he dressed himself in appropriate latex gloves, stepping into the cold embrace of dread that always seemed to surround this area. This was what the children’s lives had come down do. Just a while room, worse than a hospital, cold and alone. 

Alone. 

He blinked. 

Nobody had been looking for the children, he mused, walking slowly around the desk. No family, no friends, nothing; they were gone, and they still weren’t missed. He felt a sting of pain at that. Who could do this to a child – a beautiful child, even, dressed in good clothes, with pretty hair and a little bow and – 

Unless they didn’t look that way, before. 

‘This is a gift for you,” the letter that Jack had read had stated. The children were a gift to doctor Lec- to Hannibal. They held a meaning for him. 

Dead children. A daughter? No, Hannibal didn’t have children, he had told him before (and it felt so long ago; the dinner invitation, the good wine, the feeling of strange giddiness as Hannibal had talked quietly about families and his wish to, one day, find a wife and settle down, have kids; the moment his therapist freely stepped over his boundaries and spoke to Will about his life and his person, the moment Hannibal made himself known inside of Will’s personal space as someone to be trusted). A friend’s daughter? That would be far-fetched. 

Family. 

A sister? 

There was something like a pinprick of ideas, settling low in Will’s stomach. He turned. All the children had pale eyes and pale hair; they didn’t look too different from Hannibal’s own complexion. All of them were vaguely European, too, and dressed in style. 

Like Hannibal.

Mischa – the girl of his nightmares, the blond child with the dead eyes – dissolved into a new form, twisted and shifted in the vast expanses of his mind to look more like what Will expected to be her brother. A young girl with intelligent eyes, with a fringe of blond hair and a slightly lopsided smile, with high cheekbones and a fine bone structure. Her cheeks were coloured in with rosy tones, his eyes alive and twinkling, his dress free of blood and remains of a life shed in the back of a dingy factory. 

In his mind, Mischa returned from the dead, and Will Graham gasped like a drowning man, holding on to the side of the desk. His mind was spinning, and he clung to everything he could sense as real around him: the cold metal, the smell of disinfectant, the distant sounds of cars and the ice wagon and – 

It slammed into him like a freight train, and Will’s head snapped up too quickly, almost causing him whiplash. He ripped the gloves off his hands and ran from the mortuary, starting a wild chase as his mind formed the connections. 

He had heard that ice wagon on every scene of crime, as well as close to Hannibal’s office on the day where they had found the first letter. Always the same tune, always the same jingle. 

In an area that was basically completely devoid of children. 

Will ran, whipping his mobile from his pocket as he broke into movement. He tried calling Crawford, but immediately forgot about it as he did not pick up his receiver. 

There was no time. He had to know, and he had to know it now.

_______________________________________

He followed the sound of the car through the busy streets of Baltimore, always chasing the faint melody of the truck in his own ride. It should invoke happy childhood evening and sunshine and warmth; in Will, it only woke a sick feeling and a racing pulse.

They soon left the busy main streets and, as he had expected, turned into a quiet, run-down area, with long and winding streets, broken street lights and nothing but the faint whiff of better days long gone. He felt his anxiety rising. He could still turn back, or call Jack properly, or just don’t do anything stupid, but Will felt need – more need that ever. This was getting personal. 

When the ice wagon stopped at the end of a narrow street lined by brick walls, his sweaty hands were looking for the gun hidden below his seat. When the lights of the car went off he took a deep breath. Then, looked on as the driver excited the car. 

And well. 

He had expected something else. 

“You can come out,” the woman with the braided, blonde hair called over to him. “I just want to talk, Agent Graham.”

_______________________________________

Will stood opposite the person he had deemed the killer – and still did, ultimately; his mind was only still trying to catch up – his gun in hand and his eyes set on her lithe stature. She was somewhere between her thirties and forties, he estimated from the state of her face, and wore a slim, dark coat above what looked like a semi-casual combination. Had he ran into her on the street he would have placed her in an office, somewhere in an upper position, with well-done makeup and a perfectly cut blazer and shoes that would kill most peoples ankles. Here, however, she smelled of danger, and Will felt his heart in his throat like a caged sparrow, fighting to break free.

She wasn’t carrying a weapon, apparently, and leaned against the sides of her car with crossed arms and a slightly mocking smile on her pale complexion. Will fought for the right words; he didn’t know where he had placed them. 

“You’re surprised,” she said, chiding him softly, like a teacher. Maybe that’s what she was when she wasn’t killing girls. “You shouldn’t be. You have been doing this job for a long time now, have you not, Agent Graham? Surely you learned never to take anything for granted.” 

“Stop,” he snapped coldly, fear making him jittery and his tone harsh. “Right there. You killed three children during the last three days, you—“ 

“Katerina,” she said, still smiling, still so, so nice even in the face of his gun, now raised in a slightly trembling grip. The vowels rolled off her tongue, and Will felt himself releasing a breath he hadn’t been holding. Katerina, then. Not Mischa.  
“Katerina Kolnas. That’s my name. I thought you would know, but it seems you have been looking for me without even knowing this fine little detail …” 

She stepped closer, and Will lifted his gun like an automated reaction. Kolnas stopped, holding her hands up in gentle mockery. 

“I’m sorry, I did not want to upset you—“ 

“You are – under arrest,“ Will managed to spit out. Words were heavy on his tongue, the gears of his brain still running and clicking into place. “for murder….” 

“I am under arrest for murder?” 

There was a laugh, a gentle sound like bells in the snow. Something soft and soothing, if it would not be so terrifying. Will felt as if he had neglected something important. 

“Maybe you should check on the real murderer… Doctor Lecter,” she hissed. And with that, there was movement coming from all sides, and Will did not even manage to steady his gun in time before strong arms caught his wrists, dragging his arm behind his back, holding him in a vice-like death grip that took his breath away. 

“Lecter seems to like you, dear mister Graham. I watched him – watched you both over the last weeks, and what can I say? You’re far more effective than little dead girls and memories of the pain he deserves. Maybe you will lure him out instead. Maybe you’re the little pawn I have been looking for.” 

Will was trapped, and as the blunt side of a gun descended on the back of his head he realized: 

He had fallen prey to the hunters.

_______________________________________

He woke only once on the car ride, his hands bound tightly behind his back, mouth gagged with what tasted like old rags and head bumping consequently against the wooden decorations of the ice cream truck he had been shoved into. The faint smell of sweetness, mixed with medical alcohol and the constant, soft jingle of the car nearly made him sick, and he bit his lower lip through the gag to fight the urges of his body until it started to bleed. There was no light, no perspective – the world had been shifted sideways for him.  
He fought against the rope holding his hands back, but it was a futile attempt. He tried to scream, but realized that nobody would hear him over the obnoxious sound of music. Ultimately, all he could do was lie back, breathe deeply, and try to stay conscious.

He failed.

_______________________________________

When Kolnas’ men, clad in black balaclavas and leather jackets and reeking of cold cigarette ash, dragged him out of the truck he had to fight a second wave of nausea. A single glance provided information about his surroundings: They were in a forest, surrounded by thick foliage, just aside a shoddy trail almost too small for the truck. From somewhere nearby came the soft, susurrus sound of a small river or brook, and the last birds of the day sung their eerie song from the empty branches up ahead.

There was a wooden blockhouse, about fifty metres to what will expected was the North. He didn’t have to be told that this was supposed to be his cell – or maybe his demise. 

Will did not even try to fight them as they steered him towards the small patio, pressing him through the surprisingly heavy door and forcing him inside. It was, as he had expected, and old family home off the civilization. An ancient TV set and a shaggy old couch, a radiator that looked as if it would break apart any second, and doors leading into adjacent rooms. The whole place smelled of wet carpet and slow decay. 

The headache that had been blooming behind his eyes had started to grow like a bushfire. He would kill for some aspirin. 

“Please, make yourself at home,” Kolnas piped from somewhere behind him as the men sat him down next to the radiator, chaining his hands to the freezing cold pipes without any mercy. Will felt himself shiver against his better judgement and squeezed his eyes shut to keep any reaction inside. He wasn’t going to show them anything as long as he could. 

“This place is completely off limits. Nobody comes here at this time of the year – aside from me. I’m here often. Oh, and please don’t go looking for your mobile phone – I took the liberty of dispersing it earlier. Not that you would find any reception out here, anyway,” she added in a conversational tone, sitting down next to him in the chair and smiling down at Will’s stiff form. He tried to free him arms, tried to test the bonds holding him, and ultimately had to let go with a huff of barely suppressed pain. The radiator looked like shit, but it was far better off than he had expected. It would hold, no matter what he did.

Kolnas clicked her tongue in annoyance. 

“Try to escape, Will – I can call you Will, after all this, can I not? You’re going to be here for a long, long while now. You’re going to have a good time with me, I promise. Are you cold? You’re shaking pretty badly. Get him a blanket, boys.” 

One of the men stepped up, just to toss a moth-eaten rug atop of Will’s shivering form. He glared at him, but still refused to make a sound. 

The men were leaving the room, one after another, a numb procession of shadowy figures, emerging from his nightmares.

“That’s better, now. I like to have a guest who listens, you know that? It’s been far too long…” 

She made herself comfortable behind him. Will refused to even look into her direction and stared against the wall ( _wallpaper faded with age, peeling at the corners, with faint lines of water damage and mildew_ ) 

And Kolnas started to talk, and Will could do nothing against it. He was forced to listen.

_______________________________________

Slowly but steadily, the pictures of this case were painted in clean colours.

Katerina Kolnas told Will about her life, surrounded by nothing but silence and the echoes of the forest around them. She spoke of Lithuania and France and her childhood, of a loving father and a restaurant called Cafe de L'Este, and of a family, such a lovely, lovely family. It must have been long ago. The memory was fading, Will could hear it in the way her voice contained mourning and loneliness, which had long warped into cruel hatred. 

Then her story shifted, and her soft voice turned frigid at the edges. She spoke of a boy – no, a young man – coming into the restaurant late at night, his motorcycle parked in the bushes to the side, his fingers touching the metal bars of the cages of resting ortolans on the front patio. The birds never stirred as he entered the place and killed her father in cold blood, leaving him for his family to find him the coming morning. 

What curled is blood about this story was the fact that this young man was Hannibal Lecter. 

Will felt as if somebody had ripped the floor apart right below his feet. He was dizzy from the information alone. He had felt doubt before, but never like this; Hannibal, a stone-cold killer? But why? There was nothing that made sense, no reason for him to do anything like this. Even though Will had not known him back then he could simply not see him as a criminal – especially not as someone who killed the parents of a child, not without a reason so severe, so traumatizing that it would explain this turn of events. 

It also didn’t explain the case of the murdered children or the letters or the name that haunted his nights – and in a fit of exhaustion and pain he said so aloud. 

Kolnas chuckled behind him, certainly pleased that he was breaking his bitter silence for a sentence like this. She leaned back, crossing her legs ( _the fabric of her skirt shifting and creating friction, the heavy chair groaning under the movement of her weight._ )

“So you did not make a clear connection to me after all – you just followed your instinct in your pursue of me. How very unique. How very interesting. I see what doctor Lecter likes about you – you’re a rare specimen, are you not?” She was prone to these ramblings, so Will just stared ahead, his eyes fixed on the wall behind her. On the shadows of an antlered head, slowly moving, slowly nodding. He blinked, and the hallucination dissolved into smoke. 

“Mischa Lecter was the dear doctor’s little sister who died in her childhood. And he, he assumed that my father killed her. He told my mother once – no knowing I listened to it, not knowing I would understand a word. She died, not due to his doing, but due to the cold and a severe sickness, but Lecter never understood. He always considered my father a killer for it. I just wanted to remind him of the pain of losing that girl – assuming she looked like him, which made it easy to pick the right victims. Ah. I wanted to see him shiver and shake and come apart before finally revealing his ugly face to you, his only friend. I wanted to destroy him from the core, see him shatter in millions of piece, before I return the pain he gave me tenfold. The letters were just a little extra, something to shake him up more…”

She smiled as she spoke, and Will felt himself falter. He refused to believe her, refused to see any reality in her words, but it was hard to feel anything with the pain behind his eyelids. 

There was nothing inside of him, nothing at all; just a memory of a dead father and a child consumed by rage.

_______________________________________

The time crept by in a succession of sentences and monologues, mixed with cold water, freezing metal below his hands, and the pulse of his blood in his veins.

Will’s headaches grew by the hour. What had started as a pounding in the back of his skull ( _like tiny hands, rapping against the metal of the bath tub_ ) grew steadily into a constant, boiling rage ( _like screams from hundreds of mouths, all crying and crying and unison, trying to rip his mind apart_ ). To his great chagrin Kolnas’ voice was the only constant breaking through the pain, yet her stories made nothing better. The pictures she drew implemented themselves in Will’s retina, a film noir of the cruellest kind, images flickering like a broken projection, but always Hannibal, always the killing done by his hands, the hounds howling in the dead of the night. 

He did not want to believe her, but the pain made it hard to believe anything at all.

_______________________________________

Three days into his imprisonment, Will started to lose his hope in the eventual rescue by the FBI - if he had ever clearly hoped for it. He woke shivering on the floor, his breath ragged and broken, his eyes red-rimmed from the constant assault of nightmares. Kolnas wasn’t around; She slept in her room, away from the chamber that created his cell, away from the dirty corner he was forced to relieve himself in ( _like a dog, dirty and beaten by bruised by a spiteful owner and kept on a tight leash_ ), away from his screams when he managed to fall into fitful slumber ( _Because the hounds were there, always there, and the stag was just a step ahead, just one single step, and his movements were faltering. The children were screaming, and he would fall. He would fall. He would—_ )

Choking on a sob that tried to escape Will closed his eyes, willing the fear and pain to subside, mentally calling for help, for safety. At this, the stag nudged his shoulder, and he faltered, crying into the dirty rag below his body and fearing for the last shards of his sanity.

_______________________________________

Five days after their fateful encounter in the parking lot Will rested his head against the radiator, listening to Kolnas spewing hatred into the room, shaking slightly and barely hanging on to his consciousness. That was the moment his dream – the dream haunting him for days now – finally, miraculously came alive.

It was the low sound of hooves on parched up, dry ground first; the quick succession of beats, much like his own heart, racing and threatening to break out of his chest cavity. Then, following only seconds later, the reaction of cautious fear on the faces of his captivator. Growing anxiety. Finally, fear. 

And the bursting sound of something big, crashing right through the door, barging into the cabin in the woods. Will reflexively closed his eyes, but he could see clearly nonetheless: the black-feathered stag, bursting into the room, unable and unwilling to stop, his head lowered in a finite gesture of royalty and anger. 

And, behind him, the barking of countless dogs. The pitter-patter of claws and paws, the flurry of shaggy coats passing him, red eyes glaring at the humans disturbing the scenery of great magic. The Wild Hunt that finally came to its end, the stag cornered and turning, ready to fight for his life. 

Only then Will realized that there was no barking. No howling. Just the thundering sound of gunfire all around you. 

He opened his eyes, and the dogs seemed to melt away. Their long, patched-up fur coats transformed into lean legs and thick, synthetic jackets, and their long snouts morphed back into the faces of humans. Policemen. There was shouting, and blood splattering against the wall right next to him, and—

The stag knelt down in front of him, changing shape as it went, and nimble fingers picked open the knots and ties that held him to the radiator. As blood started flowing back into his abused veins, and his head began to clear, if only momentarily, Will chocked out an unfamiliar word, rolling across his tongue like wine thinned with poison.  
“Hannibal.” 

His saviour was about to acknowledge him, turning his head to Will and placing his heavy, warm, living hand on his forehead, when a scream shook both men to the core. Hannibal was back on his feet with surprising grace, taking his place in front of Will, defending him with his arms outstretched and his mouth ready to call for her to stop, to put an end to this; but he didn’t get too far. Kolnas jumped, a knife in hand, ready to cut and maim and kill – 

But a bullet caught her first, in mid-air, shattering her lung and slamming her into the ground with ferocity. Splatters of blood – red and hot and too real, too painful – caught Hannibal’s suit as well as Will’s face. He was shell-shocked and unable to look away.

Behind her, Jack held on to his gun, his mouth set in a firm line, his eyes on the woman's body. There was rage, boiling just underneath the surface of his skin. Rage, and no compassion.

Hannibal, however, stepped forward and knelt down next to her. His hands moved quickly and efficiently, his eyes roamed across her injuries. There was recognition dawning on his features. Before Will even managed to sit up he was holding Kolnas down, trying to still the constant flow of blood with firm fingers. 

This, Will realized with a painful, shuddering breath shaking his entire body, this wasn't the face of a killer. This wasn't a man who could murder anyone, and even now, even after all that happened - to him, and to Will, who was more than just a patient to Hannibal - even after all that, he tried to help, to heal – not minding his own feelings, his own interests in the slightest way. 

Any doubt that had ever existed within him left Will, and he forced his eyes shut, pressing his whole body against the radiator, shying away from the hands that touched his shoulder, the voices calling his name, until finally one voice stood out in particular and he allowed himself to find shelter in the even, soft tones and timbre and... 

"It's over. Will. I am sorry." 

The hands that rested on his shoulder were bloodied, and the pale eyes seeking his face were gleaming in the weak, cold light, as if unshed tears were lingering within them. 

Behind him, the FBI investigators covered the lifeless body on the floor, and Will knew that he had lost the fight. Kolnas was gone; the echoes around him told him that some, if not all of her minions were still alive, captured now by the FBI and held responsible for both abduction and murder. 

"I'm sorry," he croaked, too, repeating the words he just had heard like an echo devoid of anything personal, anything lively. His head was pounding, his eyes were watering. He could barely see straight, but he could speak. 

“I’m sorry, for – your family. Your sister. She told me—“ 

Hannibal shushed him, gently, but with a pained look. Will wanted to know, wanted to hear the whole story, but – not now, not here. The time for that would come, but right now, it was time to let things go. 

He was safe. Somewhere, Jack was barking orders. It felt like home. 

"You're going to be okay," Hannibal said into the growing darkness of the room, illuminated by flashlights and filled with voices and turmoil, and Will didn't know if he wanted to laugh at this insanity or simply wrap himself into those words and believe him. He tried to focus his thoughts, but found only raging white and red and black, fear and memories that weren’t his, and the voice of a child, lost forever. His whole world centred on the man in front of him - as if there was nothing more than Hannibal in his universe, a central, fixed point, someone to fall back on to. 

Surprisingly, it felt good, and Will allowed himself to get drawn into the explicable, mental embrace of his therapist and – friend. It still felt wrong on the tip of his tongue, this word; but Hannibal was here, and he had come with Jack, to save him. He had braced danger, for him. 

Hannibal's fingers moved across his shoulder, up to his hair, and steadied him; he didn't push, didn't move at all. 

Will allowed himself to breath for what felt like the first time in days and nodded. 

The wild hunt had taken the lost souls into the afterlife, and he was going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, wow. I loved writing this piece, but I'm also glad it's out of my head now.  
> For those who don't know her, Katerina Kolnas is an actual character mentioned in the book "Hannibal Rising". The events described by her have actually happened during the novel.


End file.
